City Leaders Won’t Support Boca Raton Police Chief Michele Miuccio By Name.
BY: ANDREW COLTON | Editor and Publisher
BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) (Copyright © 2024 MetroDesk Media, LLC) — Boca Raton Police Chief Michele Miuccio, who has spent 35 years with the police department and earns $242,000 a year, is largely disliked and distrusted by officers and civilians on the force. The sentiment, documented in an internal City of Boca Raton employee survey obtained by BocaNewsNow.com, mirrors comments made by some of the nearly 50 sworn and civilian employees who have quit the department of roughly 300 people over the past 30 months.
A BocaNewsNow.com investigation reveals that morale on the force is low, that officers believe supervisors don’t have their backs, and that the command staff structure is in disarray — with claims that the Chief routinely sends inconsistent directives down a constantly changing chain of command.
“I am a member of the Police Department,” wrote a City of Boca Raton Police employee in the internal survey. “We are a small organization compared to where I have worked in the past. Information flow from the Chief to the Officers is terrible. Decisions seemingly get made in a bubble, and decisions that affect officer’s daily lives take weeks to be made and often include none of their input, leaving them in limbo for long periods of time. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve even seen the Chief in almost a year.”
It’s not just officers and rank-and-file members who are seemingly concerned about the department’s leadership. Multiple requests from BocaNewsNow.com to every member of City Council to issue a statement of support for Chief Miuccio went unanswered. Both the office of new City Manager George S. Brown and the Fraternal Order Of Police provided only generic statements of support for the “Chief’s Office” but did not use the Chief’s name.
MASS RESIGNATIONS. EARLY “RETIREMENTS.”
Miuccio, previously an assistant chief who focused on operations, was elevated to the city’s top police spot following the 2019 resignation of the popular and publicly accessible Chief Dan Alexander. In the years that followed, mass resignations and early retirements plagued the department. In the past 30 months alone, 48 employees have resigned from the City of Boca Raton Police Department — many within a year or two of starting employment. Each employee who leaves must be replaced at expense to taxpayers who foot the bill for recruitment and training. The number is a multiple of the similarly sized Delray Beach police department, where only 22 people resigned over the past 30 months, according to a City of Delray Beach spokesperson.
Dennis Kenney is a Professor of Criminology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He told BocaNewsNow.com that the numbers are notable when it comes to command staff — the key to a police organization running well.
“The numbers provided suggest about an overall turnover rate of 25 percent in two plus years which is a bit high but not necessarily a huge concern,” said Professor Kenney. “One area that did stand out to me was the number of supervisory personnel who resigned.”
Among the resignations: sworn police officers, sergeants, dispatchers, call takers, records specialists, crime scene technicians, command center technicians, and notably, the department’s own mental health clinician. The official list below, obtained by BocaNewsNow.com, lists all resignations between January of 2022 and August of 2024.
SURVEY RESULTS
A review of all 109 internal survey responses provided to BocaNewsNow.com shows not one specifically complimenting the Chief. The entire survey is published as a PDF at the end of this report. Several respondents criticized Miuccio as a manager who doesn’t interact with officers, her staff, or the public. Some privately told BocaNewsNow.com that she is the polar opposite of current PBSO Sheriff Ric Bradshaw who is routinely seen interacting with the public, praising his deputies, and sharing information with the news media.
“Lead by example,” wrote a Boca Raton Police employee in the city’s own survey. “Administration has to do this first before it can ask its employees to do the same. Value your employees – People are leaving because they no longer feel appreciated/valued. They are not retiring to retire, they are leaving lots of money on the table, to leave and get another job elsewhere. Supervisors have no decision making ability and input is rarely followed.”
“The Police Department needs to hire outside captains and chiefs,” wrote another. “The senior leadership is extremely hostile toward the employees and lower level supervisors. Promotions need to be conducted by an outside agency so the process can be fair and impartial.
“Allow us to do more work to reduce crime in the city,” wrote a third Boca PD employee in the internal survey. “We constantly get punished if we successfully apprehend a burglar or violent felon because the (body) cameras are only used to find policy violations instead of a job well done. This has created a fear in the workplace and the message is, do not catch any criminals just let them go. Stop promoting people just because they are friends of have a relative in law enforcement. Promote people based on their work performance and have an overall picture of them, not just concentrate on their punishment. See when a supervisor is failing at leading others. There have been multiple cases where a single supervisor has made a hostile work environment, where multiple employees quit the job due to stress, feel undervalued and bullied.”
CITY LEADERS RESPOND
“The police department had 67% of our employees (officers and civilians) participate in the survey,” said Assistant City Manager for Communication Chrissy Gibson in a written statement. “The majority of concerns discussed were compensation and benefits. We appreciate the constructive feedback that has been brought forward by our employees. Some of that feedback includes leadership training, succession planning, better communication, building trust, etc. The command staff has reviewed the results, and we are committed to our employees to continue to work on those areas. We will utilize the results of this survey to continue our dedication to our department and our commitment to protect and serve our community.”
The situation, according to former Boca Raton Police Department employees — both sworn and civilian — may be worse than city leaders acknowledge. While most say Boca Raton is a great place to live and work, many say they left because they couldn’t deal with the stress in the police department. Several speaking with BocaNewsNow.com point to the number of employees who resigned well before their 20 year pensions kicked in.
“That’s unheard of,” said a former employee. “You come here to retire with a pension. You don’t come here to leave here after a few years.”
The list of the employees who left over the past 30 months does not include employees who retired early. Assistant City Clerk Phil Daly refused to release that information citing a Florida statute that prevents the release of retiree names. BocaNewsNow.com didn’t ask for names, just statistics. A photo provided to BocaNewsNow.com of recent retirees at a ceremony suggests that number could be as high as 44. If accurate, that means nearly 100 people have departed the department over 30 months. But we don’t have a total number. Phil Daly and other City of Boca Raton communication representatives repeatedly refuse to release statistical, crime, and incident information to the media and the public, all apparently at the direction of Chief Miuccio and potentially in violation of Florida statutes. PBSO and most neighboring departments release crime reports and crash reports every day.
“IT’S LIKE DISNEY WORLD.”
“It’s like Disney World,” said a former Boca PD employee. “The chief doesn’t want people to know that crime happens here and that people die here. And then when something big happens that she can’t ignore, all hell breaks loose.”
Over the past several months, multiple high-profile events seemingly support that claim. The Boca Raton Police Department locked down the Boca Raton Town Center Mall for hours on September 14th after receiving a threatening call regarding guns and bombs outside the mall. It was apparently clear within minutes that that the call was a hoax, but officers were told to keep panicking people inside — some crying while locked in storage rooms. No arrests have been made in two months, despite video evidence of teens seemingly admitting involvement. The Boca Raton Police Department refuses to provide an update.
Days later, a double-murder on Ocean Boulevard was hailed a success when the suspect was arrested the following day in Georgia. A former employee, however, says calling the arrest of Devante Moss “success” is spin. That former employee says that the Chief’s “operational expertise” should have led to capturing the suspect while he battled heavy afternoon traffic between Ocean Blvd. and I-95, not after he made it 600 miles away to Georgia.
Neither Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer, nor City Council members Yvette Drucker, Fran Nachlas, Andy Thomson, or Marc Wigder responded to requests for supportive statements about Chief Miuccio. City Manager George Brown issued a statement of support for all City leaders, but notably did not mention the chief by name: “The City Manager fully supports our Police Chief and all department heads,” he said in a written statement provided to BocaNewsNow.com.
The Fraternal Order of Police, which represents officers on the force, also issued a statement of support for the Chief’s office — but like the City Manager, neglected to specifically mention Chief Miuccio by name.
“The Boca Raton Police FOP Lodge 35 is committed to supporting the Department’s mission to protect and serve our community. Together with the Chief’s Office, we work closely to ensure our members receive the highest level of training and resources necessary to perform a challenging and dangerous job. Thanks to this working relationship, our officers can provide the city of Boca Raton with the highest standards of police service.”
